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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26883604">the creeping hour</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilhex/pseuds/lilhex'>lilhex</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU: the kiss scene with noah and blue except its w ronan and its barely a kiss, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Post-The Raven Boys, Pre-The Dream Thieves, Underage Drinking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:54:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>960</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26883604</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilhex/pseuds/lilhex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did you ever kiss anyone? When you were alive?”<br/><br/>Or: Ronan gets drunk, Noah is there to remind him he deserves better things in life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Noah Czerny/Ronan Lynch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the creeping hour</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is inspired after a tumblr post i found on pinterest that goes like:</p>
<p>one time when i was a little drunk and laying in bed with a guy, i kissed his neck and mumbled "i could beat the shit out of you" in his ear. </p>
<p>he said "i know"<br/>(by okcupidescapdes)</p>
<p>i also don't know what else to say in my defense other than warn you that it's not a happy fic, nor particularly shippy for these characters, so please don't proceed if you are looking for something fluffy or happy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On the nights Gansey slept, Ronan drank alone. The nights Gansey slept were colored with gasoline and flickering streetlights, the stink of alcohol humming at the back of his throat and loneliness. On the nights Gansey slept Ronan didn’t dream.</p>
<p>He stumbled home late. <em>Late </em>late. Never-before-two late. And then he drank. He drank until he reached precisely that point where he wouldn’t remember. And then he drank some more.</p>
<p>That night welcomed Ronan home with a punch in the gut – if stumbling home to darkness and silence could leave an impact on skin, his would be black and blue. No light, no soft jazz, no scent of mint escaped the creaks of Gansey’s door. Somewhere behind that door, some<em>how</em>, he had drowsed off, blissfully out of it, escaping the night and the horrors it held, living to see another.</p>
<p>Dawn would be breaking soon. It was time for bed.</p>
<p>Except that, as Ronan turned to his side that night, every move a feat, there was <em>something </em>there that hadn’t been there any other night.</p>
<p>The something was corporeal enough to wrinkle the bedsheets beneath it.</p>
<p>It was not corporeal enough to weight down its end of the mattress.</p>
<p>It was also small, decidedly smaller than Ronan, and wrapped up around itself, and very dark, because it was in the shadows, just like everything else in the room. Its eyes, unlike everything else in the room, were alight and staring back.</p>
<p>It said,</p>
<p>“I know your secret, Ronan Lynch,”</p>
<p>very pleasantly.</p>
<p>Ronan blinked. Through a dry mouth, he said,</p>
<p>“Creep.”</p>
<p>“Dreamer.”</p>
<p>“We’re way past that,” Ronan reminded him sweetly.</p>
<p>With that out of the way, Ronan felt the occasion called for a smile. He bared his teeth at Noah, the friendly side of his hostile smile. The what-are-you-doing-in-my-room-you-weirdo brand.</p>
<p>Noah only blinked in response, once, like a tamed animal.</p>
<p>Ronan stared. This was the closest he’d ever been to Noah. This was the closest he’d ever been to a boy, while standing still, and laying down. And God was he still.</p>
<p>He’d been close to men before, physically close. Closer than he and Noah were now. He’d punched nosebleeds through many a young man’s face many a time before.</p>
<p>The thrill of a fight, turns out, actually was nothing to <em>this</em>. The kind of closeness that can only come with stillness. The kind of closeness that is stretched out through time, a snake uncurling leisurely.</p>
<p>He’d touched men before. Many times. Aglionby boys were plenty, loaded with hormones and teenage rage, and Ronan Lynch was irresistible.</p>
<p>There was no one they would rather fight. No one who begged for it more.</p>
<p>He’d been touched his fair share, too. The kind of fleeting touch that leaves a lasting, drawn out memory, a hard grip on the back of the neck, a knee in the gut.</p>
<p>What kind of impact would a longer lasting touch leave?</p>
<p>Four icy fingertips were on his neck.</p>
<p>Noah hadn’t flinched, or blinked, or looked away.</p>
<p>Ronan swallowed down absolutely nothing at all.</p>
<p>A ghost hand traced the outline of his neck, the edge of his tattoo, his shaven head. The silhouette of all things that made Ronan Lynch.</p>
<p>
  <em>You can want this. You could have this. You’re allowed to want this.</em>
</p>
<p>Their faces were, Ronan noted in his drunken haze, so close.</p>
<p>Noah’s lips hung a little open.</p>
<p>Ronan’s throat was dry and he knew the spring he wanted to drink from.</p>
<p>They lay like that for a long time, close. It wasn’t the closest they could be; it wasn’t the closest Ronan had gotten before. But it was the longest.</p>
<p>Closeness can have many forms. Absolute and sharp, there and then gone, like a knife withdrawn; or slow, gentle, like Noah’s fingers on Ronan’s skin, moving along without a hurry in the world. A form of stillness in the movement. Lasting. Staying.</p>
<p>They lay like that for a long time, Noah caressing Ronan’s skin, Ronan letting him.  He didn’t know how long, but the darkness began to shift around them as light crept in, giving colors and shadow to the room.  To most things in the room.</p>
<p>“Noah,” Ronan said finally, voice dry and barely there.</p>
<p>“Hm?”</p>
<p>“If you were alive I could’ve beaten the shit out of you man.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>Noah leaned forward and kissed the furthest end of his tattoo, where the talon exhausted its reach. Ronan’s skin shivered. He stared at Noah’s eyes, Noah’s lips. His own mouth parted. But he didn’t move.</p>
<p>“Noah you’re so cold man. I can’t kiss a dead person. No offence.”</p>
<p>Noah blinked, but as he had begun to disappear it looked almost as if he winked.</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>He was fading.</p>
<p>He knew. He knew. He had known all along, had known all his thoughts, and yet he had stayed. Tracing fingertips across his skin. Carrying him through the night. <em>It doesn’t have to be as cold.</em></p>
<p>“Did you ever kiss anyone? When you were alive?”</p>
<p>It was time to go. It was time to go and Ronan had to know, he had to know, because he would never ask again, and then he would never know.</p>
<p>Ronan cupped Noah’s face. He was still corporeal, skin soft beneath his touch. And wet with tears.</p>
<p>His unwritten reputation among the late-night Aglionby crowd was that you didn’t make Ronan Lynch bleed without bleeding yourself.</p>
<p>Apparently the same applied to crying.</p>
<p>He fixed his gaze at Noah’s lips. <em>Please move, please tell me</em>, he urged. Almost prayed.</p>
<p>The lips moved.</p>
<p>“Yes,” they mouthed.</p>
<p>Feeling the edge of a talon curling into his skin, burning him with what he was going to regret, Ronan leaned forward.</p>
<p>And fell through cool air.</p>
<p>The talon’s edge was still cold. </p>
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